A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

Get a Resident Evil: Afterlife fix with seven cool new character art posters from Japan. (Dread Central)

Get into the minds behind the Star Trek-convention-with-zombies mashup novel Night of the Living Trekkies in an interview with Kevin David Anderson and Sam Stall. In it, they talk about the characters, inspiration and references in the novel. (LA Times – Hero Complex)

Vancouver’s mainstream media gets on the “Oh, hey, zombies are kinda popular right now” bandwagon. (Vancouver Sun)

A tiny bit more info on Rock of the Dead, the rhythm game/zombie shooter coming for the various console platforms. (Dread Central)

Some kids somewhere in the UK (Wales? The accent is impressive and unidentifiable to my provincial American ears) are making a cheesy looking zombie flick called Zombie Killers, about two kids trapped in a “caravan” (trailer?) by the zombie apocalypse. Gee, kids do the darnedest zombie things! There’s a trailer below. (Buy Zombie)

Designed by Simon Spearing, Dead of Night is a game for up to six people (four is the recommended number) that more or less turns Night of the Living Dead into a game. As mentioned, it is free, but it will probably cost you a few dollars worth of printing supplies to print out the rules, tokens and other necessities (or it will cost your employer a few dollars worth of printing supplies…). Sound fun? Continue through to get the rest of the info, including where to download it.

The game resides on a Dead of Night page at the Board Game Geek site (cool site for gamers, by the way!). You can download a handy zip file of all the necessary components (and some cool optional ones) from the the Gaming Dead‘s dedicated Dead of Night link (right-click and “Save As…” on that sucker). It’s about 65 megs. If you like the game and want to meet fellow aficionados, or need help with it, visit one of the still-active Dead of Night forums on Board Game Geek. if you need more info, visit that first link, or read the handy blurb below, from that same page:

Dead of Night is a 1 to 6 player game based on scenarios you might recognize from various zombie films. There is no ‘Zombie Master’ here: all the players are on the same side, all working together to survive, although the option to use other players as zombie bait while you grab all the guns and lock yourself in the cellar is there if you prefer.
Either way, you will need to use strategy and your (fresh and spicy) brains as well as chainsaws and shotguns to make it through the night.

Each scenario has a location to be explored, and an objective to be fulfilled, but if things don’t go well just survival may be enough. Cards drawn throughout the game may help or hinder your progress, but as the night draws on you can be sure things are going to get much worse before you see the sun again.

The game ends when somebody fulfils the main objective (eg, escaping in a fuelled up vehicle), or at daybreak, which brings respite in the form of an advancing army patrol. If you can survive until the end of the game, you are a winner. The survivor who best fulfils their objectives will come out on top.

I personally haven’t had a chance to play it yet, but if and when I do get a chance, I will try to write up a report. In the meantime, if you try it and like it (or hate it) feel free to leave a comment, or ask me about a guest post review!

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

Let’s go back to the set of The Walking Dead (TV) for part four of the multipart set visit series! This time out, we’re looking at prosthetics and gore! (Dread Central)

Genre vet and Frank Darabont favorite Thomas Jane is hoping to play a part in The Walking Dead at some point. Could be cool. (Popcorn Biz)

Sadly, though, rumors of the The Walking Dead being signed for a second season are just rumors, says Frank Darabont. (Ain’t It Cool News)

Apparently, Resident Evil: Afterlife premiered in Tokyo last night/early this morning. You can see a new sizzle reel from the film, embedded below. (FEARnet)

Apparently, Scarlet Johansson and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are “loosely” attached to the Diablo Cody-produced adaptation of S.G. Browne’s Breathers: A Zombie’s Lament. Don’t shake it now, they might come loose! (Pajiba)

Details have emerged on Colin‘s US festival screenings and domestic DVD release details. (Fangoria)

Enjoy a substantial update on the development progress of the indie zombie flick Zombie Hood (from the makers of the short film Aye Up Me Duck of the Dead). (Buy Zombie)

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

It seems Hollywood big-name director Barry Levinson is working on a “zombie eco-thriller” called The Bay about a massive viral outbreak engulfing the East Coast that will be depicted as if from video from camera phones, security footage, etc. Uh, you mean like Diary of the Dead meets Cloverfield? (Quiet Earth)

Author of the zombie apocalypse novel Feed Mira Grant explains why zombies are the Unitarians of the monster world. (Borders Blog)

There’s a new viral video clip for Zombie Roadkill, FEARnet‘s upcoming series about a stretch of cursed highway that reanimates animals, one angry undead squirrel and the boy who has to save his friends from said squirrel. Check out the clip below. (Dread Central)

The new website for the short-story compilation The Living Dead 2 has launched with eight free short stories. (Buy Zombie)

Zombie Road Kill: Clip 1
Uploaded by dreadcentral. – Check out other Film & TV videos.

10) Definition – Early on, I spent two posts attempting to define exactly what a zombie is. The first of those was “Is it a zombie” and I followed that with “Defining the dead: What is a zombie?” which elaborated. There was a lot of good feedback on those posts, so be sure to read the comments. You’ll also notice I promised a third (and possibly additional) post in the series. It may still happen, especially if I thought you all wanted it…

9) Get yourself clean – At the time I posted my friend Matt’s pictures from a zombie car wash fundraiser in Utah, I didn’t think much of it. A momentary amusement, nothing more. Naturally, it went on to become my most popular post by a huge margin. Apparently I should spend less time thinking about zombies, more time taking pictures of them performing mundane tasks… Surprisingly, my photos from the zombie engagement party and Denver zombie walk didn’t do nearly as well. Fickle.

8) OMG! Russian zombies! – Proving once again that the simplest posts seem to draw the most attention, this posting of a YouTube video clip that purports to show an attack by real zombies in Russia did huge traffic, getting linked from numerous external sites. I threw this one up as filler that went up during a four-day camping trip (where I proposed to my now-wife!), which says … something. Hell if I know what. If I did, I’d do twice the traffic I currently do. Anyway, it is a cool viral vid, but it’s not real. It’s an ad for a videogame called S.T.A.L.K.E.R., which a commenter revealed. Not that that stopped people from speculating on its authenticity…

7) Attack of Rob Zombie’s dickhead lawyers – Every once in a while, I get to do something like real journalism here! Well, at least once, anyway, when Rob Zombie’s lawyers tried to sue Eric Weiss to stop him from using the name Zombie!, claiming Mr. Zombie owned the term. Ahem. It generated a bit of an uproar on the Internets, Rob Zombie heard about it (in part because of my report, supposedly) and called his lawyers off. Everyone lived happily ever after! It’s still worth a read, even if I do say so myself.

6) Most wanted – I watch a lot of movies that don’t have zombies in them. Sometimes when I do, I come across a director that strikes me as having the right stuff to do a seriously kick-ass zombie movie. So I made a list of my top ten most-wanted zombie movie directors. Feel free to add your favorite would-be director in the comments.

5) I dream of zombies – I dream of zombies frequently and so do a lot of you apparently. This was a very early addition to the site and it’s a perennial favorite with a ton of comments from people (many of them first-time visitors who found me by Googling to figure out WTF their freaky zombie dreams meant) sharing their own zombie dreams. Someday I’d like to do a follow up post on the phenomenon, utilizing some of the interesting info people left me as a comment.

4) Zombie radio – One of my favorite independent zombie productions is the radio-drama style podcast We’re Alive. Alongside The Walking Dead it’s one of the best ongoing series set in a zombie apocalypse and it’s got some genuinely engaging and original twists on the genre. And you can get it all for free. If you’re not listening to this, you should be — season two just started, so you can catch up easily.

3) Fashionable zombies fighting Obama – I kicked off my Fashion Zombie series with a look at one of my all-time favorite zombie t-shirts, Obama vs the zombie. Apparently, the people agreed because it is, by far, the most-viewed entry in the Fashion Zombie canon.

2) Worst of the worst – Any fan of zombies realizes that for every good zombie movie there are two bad one, and a third that is brain-bendingly terrible. To help you avoid the real stinkers, I shared the rotten fruit of my experience with a list of the worst zombie movies I’ve ever seen (so far). It’s also good fodder for masochists and those looking for validation that their $20 backyard zombie epic is better than something out there.

1) My humble beginnings – Ever wonder how my love affair with the undead got its start? I revealed my humble beginnings in the second-ever post I ever did for the site. There’s obviously more to the story (and maybe I’ll do a followup some day) but this is a good primer, as well as an explanation of why Return of the Living Dead is so damn awesome.

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

The mainstream media gets all rhapsodic over the possibility that AMC’s TV adaptation of The Walking Dead will return the zombie genre to its deep, meaningful roots. (The Atlantic)

If you’re already caught up to the current issue of The Walking Dead comic, this spoiler-filled annotated Google map of the major events of the story will help jog your memory of your favorite and most heart-breaking moments. (Thanks to Andre Hernandez for the tip!)

FEMA is ready for the zombie apocalypse, as a recent photo taken in FEMA administrator Craig Fugate’s office revealed a copy of Max Brooks Zombie Survival Guide. I’m sleeping better at nights now that I’ve seen this. (Techyum)

Come October, Vintage Books will publish Warm Bodies, a zombie romance novel from Isaac Marion. It’s about a zombie and a human in love, it’s described as a modern twist on Romeo and Juliet and it has received positive comments from a diverse cast of people including Twilight author Stephanie Meyer and Shaun of the Dead star Simon Pegg.

If you prefer more traditional zombie fare for reading, N.J. Hallard’s Breaking News: An Autozombiography is a first-person account of surviving the first year of the zombie apocalypse. It’s available now.

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

Alice herself (aka Milla Jovovich) speaks about Resident Evil: Afterlife, explaining why it’s the best of the four RE films, how her character has grown and lots more. (Fangoria)

Or, if you find reading tedious, try the Resident Evil: Afterlife behind the scenes video embedded below on for size. (Dread Central)

If you really love Dead Rising 2, you need the High Stakes Edition deluxe edition. It comes with a bunch of stuff, including a fancy poker set, commemorative map, five green dice, some custom sets of cards, exclusive DLC and a chance to win a 6′ tall zombie statue. Man, I wish I had $90 to blow on this thing. Anybody feeling generous? (Capcom Unity)

Seems a second season of AMC’s The Walking Dead is a done deal and it will begin filming in February. Great news! (Fangoria)

You can get Zombie Girl: The Movie on DVD as of November 9. If you’ve forgotten, that’s the documentary that follows pre-teen filmmaker Emily Hagins as she makes her debut zombie feature Pathogen. (Fangoria)

The hyperkinetic “parkour zombie” film Devil’s Playground gets a new one-sheet and a premiere date of October 3 at the UK’s Gorezone Film Festival. (Dread Central)

If you always wanted to stave off attacks by zombies and robots and giant bugs with your plastic guitar controller in a rhythm game, get ready to pee yourself with excitement at the Rock of the Dead trailer embedded below. (Buy Zombie)

Washington, D.C.’s Spooky Movie International Horror Film Festival announced the low-budget zombie flick Colin as one of its programmed films this year. The festival kicks off October 21 and you can get more info at the official website. You can also read my thoughts on Colin if you’re interested. (28 Days Later Analysis)

There’s a second trailer for the animated would-be zombie project Year Zero (would-be as in the dude is hping someone will give him the dollars to make it a reality). You can check it out below. (Quiet Earth)

There’s also a trailer for a new webseries called Code Z. There’s a really long-winded, convoluted synopsis at that link, but here’s what you need to know: three chicks, short skirts, zombie ass-whupping. Trailer embedded below. (Buy Zombie)

It’s barely news and it’s barely zombie, but now you know that there’s a spec script floating around Hollywood about an American family’s visit to Taiwan during the time the dead can walk the earth. It’s by Kai Yu Wu, it’s called Fractured Souls and the pitch line is “The Grudge meets The Others.” I guess they’ll be walking around in bodily form, which is what makes it kinda-sorta-almost zombie. (Bloody Disgusting)

Resident Evil: Afterlife behind-the-scenes featurette

Resident Evil: Afterlife – Behind-the-Scenes clip
Uploaded by dreadcentral. – Classic TV and last night’s shows, online.

Rock of the Dead trailer

Year Zero trailer 2

Code Z webseries trailer

Can you think of a better way to say “I love zombies” and “I was hip to Internet stuff way back in ’00!” in one, easy-to-wear shirt? Me either! As an added bonus, it’s sure to confound your younger friends and Internet-impaired acquaintances equally well. You can buy it for $25 from ExBoyfriend in any of four different colors, or get in on an American Apparel or organic cotton shirt for a few bucks more. And yes, it’s a little expensive, but 5 percent of profits go to animal rescue, so there’s that.

I’m attempting to assemble an all zombie-themed wardrobe. Fashion Zombie is my weekly post detailing the coolest zombie-themed clothes and accessories I can find. Check back every Monday for another look at the hottest zombie apparel.

Back? Great. That brings us to today’s Undead Diversion. See, no such list can be definitive. There are pros and cons to each member, everyone has their own way of approaching problems and, most importantly, among 50,000 zombie movies, games and books, there’s a lot of options to be utilized. Besides, it’s fun to read other lists, right? Thus I was quite pleased to stumble across another fine zombie apocalypse dream team list recently, and I’d like to share it with you. It’s by Justin Robinson of The Satellite Show and I knew it was worth my time before I finished the first blurb. Have a look:

The Leader – Sheriff David Dutten (Timothy Olyphant) The Crazies remake
Okay, so maybe Sheriff Dutten doesn’t have the best track record. The fact of the matter is very few leaders in these films do, especially ones with coherent plans. So Dutten only managed to get one person out alive. There are two mitigating factors: a) she was a pregnant woman, so way to prioritize the continuation of the species and b) he had to deal with armed zombies, the US Military and a fucking nuclear bomb. Show me someone else that can do that. The alternate would be Ben of Night of the Living Dead. His track record is even worse, but this guy had maybe the worst group of survivors of any hero before or since. When the most useful people in the group set fire to the only means of escape, that’s a problem. Sure, Ben didn’t have the best plan, or even a plan, but he did keep that short bus alive long after everyone should have been shotgunning bleach.

Obviously, this is a man who knows and loves his zombie lore. Head over to the original post and read the whole thing, and be sure to tell him I sent you.

A daily roundup of all the undead news that shambles into view… Bookmark the home page or add the RSS feed to your reader for your daily dose of walking dead. Got news tips? E-mail me at cory.casciato[AT]gmail.com.

The third Resident Evil: Afterlife clip, Alice lands a plane, the hard way. See it embedded below. (28 Days Later Analysis)

The fourth Resident Evil: Afterlife clip shows a thing with a big ax chasing Ali Larter (aka Claire Redfield) to some quasi-heavy metal music. Naturally, you can also find it below. (Bloody Disgusting)

The previously untitled Double Bear-produced zombie survival RPG has a name: Dead State and you can read a lot about what’s in store. It sounds awesome. (Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

Some new, ludicrous details have come to light about what you can create to kill zombies in Dead Rising 2. How about a lightsaber? This game will either be ridiculously awesome, or just plain ridiculous. (Ars Technica)

If you want to watch your new Survival of the Dead Blu-ray with some commentary by George A. R0mero and Dread Central‘s Uncle Creepy (aka Steve Barton), you can! As long as you have your Blu-ray player hooked up to the interwebz for BD Live action. (Dread Central)

The city of Minneapolis will pay $165,000 to a bunch of street protesters they arrested for dressing as zombies and playing music too loud. WTF? (Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune)

French people, be excited! Both upcoming REC films have been picked up for French distribution on DVD and in theaters. Hopefully the US will follow suit soon. (Bloody Disgusting)

Between October 7 and October 30, Chicago zombie theater patrons will be treated to Musical of the Living Dead, a musical zom-com about ten very different people trapped in a farmhouse during the zombie apocalypse. (BroadwayWorld.com)

Get a little look behind the scenes at the man who created the stage show How to Survive a Zombie Apocalypse. (The Visitor)

In September 2010, Armando Rosamilia’s “extreme zombie novella” Highway to Hell will be available in ebook from from Rymfire Ebooks. It promises “extreme violence, extreme sexual situations, extreme zombies.” Sounds extreme.

Resident Evil: Afterlife clip 3

Resident Evil: Afterlife clip 4